# Giorgetto Giugiaro and Jony Ive: Two Design Icons, Opposite Trajectories, One Shared Ambition **Source:** https://glitchwire.com/news/giorgetto-giugiaro-and-jony-ive-two-design-icons-opposite-trajectories-one-share/ **Published:** 2026-05-26T13:21:39.478Z **Author:** Tech Desk · Glitchwire **Categories:** Tech, Culture ## Summary From the VW Golf to Nikon cameras, and from the iPhone to Ferrari's electric Luce, Giugiaro and Ive followed inverse paths to the same destination: design that transcends categories. ## Article The most influential car designer of the 20th century never particularly cared about cars. [Giorgetto Giugiaro](https://www.cnn.com/style/article/giorgetto-giugiaro-interview) told CNN he got involved with automobiles "not out of passion, but as a part of my creative process." That dispassion turned out to be a superpower. It let him treat a Fiat hatchback with the same rigor as a Maserati supercar. It let him design a pasta shape with the same focus as a Lotus Esprit. Now consider Jony Ive. He spent 27 years inside Apple designing consumer electronics. This week Ferrari unveiled the [Luce](/news/ferraris-luce-is-the-most-ambitious-bet-on-electrification-any-sports-car-maker/), an all-electric sports car with a LoveFrom interior that Ive and Marc Newson spent five years shaping. Their trajectories are mirror images. Giugiaro made his name in automotive and expanded outward. Ive made his name in computing and now finds himself designing the cockpit of a car that starts at €550,000. ![Giorgetto Giugiaro and Jony Ive: Two Design Icons, Opposite Trajectories, One Shared Ambition — image 1 of 7](https://pub-cd269283baf64f24b018f495b4cd2277.r2.dev/med_5cfa4d9a44166.jpg) ![Giorgetto Giugiaro and Jony Ive: Two Design Icons, Opposite Trajectories, One Shared Ambition — image 2 of 7](https://pub-cd269283baf64f24b018f495b4cd2277.r2.dev/BMW_M1__front_right__Brooklyn_.jpg) ![Giorgetto Giugiaro and Jony Ive: Two Design Icons, Opposite Trajectories, One Shared Ambition — image 3 of 7](https://pub-cd269283baf64f24b018f495b4cd2277.r2.dev/STL323065_1.webp) ![Giorgetto Giugiaro and Jony Ive: Two Design Icons, Opposite Trajectories, One Shared Ambition — image 4 of 7](https://pub-cd269283baf64f24b018f495b4cd2277.r2.dev/Maserati-Ghibli-1966-wallpaper.jpg) ![Giorgetto Giugiaro and Jony Ive: Two Design Icons, Opposite Trajectories, One Shared Ambition — image 5 of 7](https://pub-cd269283baf64f24b018f495b4cd2277.r2.dev/csm_Fiat_Panda_presentazione.jpg) ![Giorgetto Giugiaro and Jony Ive: Two Design Icons, Opposite Trajectories, One Shared Ambition — image 6 of 7](https://pub-cd269283baf64f24b018f495b4cd2277.r2.dev/Nikon_F3_with_HP_viewfinder.jpg) ![Giorgetto Giugiaro and Jony Ive: Two Design Icons, Opposite Trajectories, One Shared Ambition — image 7 of 7](https://pub-cd269283baf64f24b018f495b4cd2277.r2.dev/DTQ0gMVUMAAD3Tf.jpg) ## The Car Designer Who Designed Everything Else Giugiaro was born in 1938 near Turin. He joined Fiat at 17, became chief designer at Carrozzeria Bertone at 22, and co-founded Italdesign in 1968. His car portfolio is staggering: the Volkswagen Golf Mk1, the Lotus Esprit, the BMW M1, the DeLorean DMC-12, the Maserati Ghibli, the Fiat Panda. In 1999, a jury of 120 journalists named him "Car Designer of the Century." In 2002, the Automotive Hall of Fame inducted him. What many forget is that Italdesign launched an industrial design division in 1974. Giugiaro's reach soon extended to cameras for Nikon, firearms for Beretta, watches for Seiko, motorcycles for Ducati, trains for the Riyadh metro, and the stadium for Juventus FC. His Nikon work became perhaps his most enduring non-automotive legacy. The Nikon F3, introduced in 1980, was the first of many Nikon professional cameras he styled. That distinctive red stripe on the grip? That was Giugiaro. Italdesign went on to design the F4, F5, F6, and multiple professional DSLRs including the D1 through D4. The relationship lasted nearly two decades. When photographers today praise the "feel" of high-end Nikon bodies, they're describing something a car designer in Turin conceived. And then there's the pasta. In 1983, pasta maker Voiello asked Giugiaro to create a new shape. The result was Marille, a wave-like form inspired by automotive door gaskets. It was designed so grooves could hold sauce without absorbing it, optimized for extrusion manufacturing. Giugiaro told interviewers he struggled more designing Marille than he did designing cars. The pasta flopped commercially because it cooked unevenly, but Giugiaro remained philosophical: "I owe my popular fame to that pasta. I got even published on Newsweek." ## The Consumer Gadget Designer Who Now Designs Cars Jony Ive followed the opposite arc. He joined Apple in 1992, back when the company had no coherent design identity. When Steve Jobs returned in 1997, Ive became senior vice president of industrial design. The 1998 iMac, with its translucent Bondi Blue shell, announced that computers could be objects of desire. The iPod followed in 2001, the iPhone in 2007, the iPad in 2010, the Apple Watch in 2015. Jobs described Ive as his "spiritual partner at Apple." When Ive left in 2019, he founded LoveFrom with fellow designer Marc Newson. The firm worked with Airbnb, designed the coronation emblem for King Charles III, and in 2023 quietly began collaborating with OpenAI. The Ferrari Luce project began around five years ago. LoveFrom had creative latitude to define the design direction from the outset. The result is an [interior](/news/the-physics-flip-how-warm-water-chip-cooling-is-rewriting-data-center-economics/) that defies EV convention: mechanical buttons, dials machined from anodized aluminum, glass toggles. The steering wheel alone contains recycled aluminum, glass elements, leather grips, and a digital binnacle that moves with the wheel as a single unit. No giant touchscreen dominates the dash. Ferrari calls it a return to tactility. ## Convergent Design Philosophy Both men share a ruthlessness about removing the superfluous. Giugiaro once said his philosophy in cars and objects is that "the form should be honest. We could say that I try to remove the superfluous and be harmonious, I strive for harmony in complexity." Ive described his approach as "fanatical care beyond the obvious stuff." They also share a willingness to apply industrial rigor to unexpected categories. Giugiaro treated pasta like an engineering problem. Ive treated an automobile cockpit like a product-design problem. Neither sees category boundaries as real constraints. The difference is institutional. Giugiaro spent his career as a consultant to manufacturers. Italdesign served Volkswagen, Fiat, BMW, Alfa Romeo, and dozens of others simultaneously. Ive spent his career embedded inside a single company that prized secrecy. He had nearly three decades at Apple to develop a coherent design language. Giugiaro had weeks or months per project, jumping between clients and product types. Both trajectories produced icons. The [Volkswagen Golf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Golf) remains the best-selling European car in history. The iPhone redefined mobile computing. And now the Luce stands as a test case for whether a consumer-electronics designer can bring something new to Maranello. Giugiaro is 87. He still works at GFG Style with his son Fabrizio. When asked recently about AI in design, he said: "Can artificial intelligence do better than humans? Maybe, but there always needs to be someone responsible. Design is not democracy. You need one person to decide." Ive would likely agree. --- **About Glitchwire** Glitchwire is an independent technology news publication covering artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, science, security, policy, finance, and the broader technology industry. 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